20 at Logan charged with lying to get jobs

BOSTON – Twenty workers at Logan International Airport, including six security screeners, were charged Wednesday with lying to get their jobs or security badges as part of a nationwide crackdown on airport workers.

The charges come after a review of 3,500 people who had clearance to be in secure areas of Logan, such as the runways, baggage areas and terminals. Terrorists hijacked two passenger jets from Logan on Sept. 11 and crashed them into the World Trade Center.

Similar reviews have been conducted at other airports, including Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, where 271 people were fired in December.

“We need to know who is working in the secure areas of the airports,” said Ned Schwartz, special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

All 20 from Logan were charged with lying on their employment or security applications by giving false Social Security numbers or false alien registration cards, also known as “green cards.”

They worked for six private companies at Logan, not the airport itself. Six are accused of using false information to obtain their badges while working at pre-departure security checkpoints for the beleaguered Argenbright Security Inc., which lost its contract at Logan in December. The remainder worked for cleaning, hospitality or fuel companies.

Fifteen also were charged with being in the United States illegally.

All but five, who were still being sought, were taken into custody in a sweep Wednesday morning. None is suspected of terror-related activities, U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said.

“The hard lesson of Sept. 11 was that there is still more that could and should be done to tighten airport security and ensure the flying public’s safety,” Sullivan said. “This initiative is a major step in closing those gaps in security that may have still existed post-Sept. 11.”

The Massachusetts Port Authority, which issues the security badges, does not have the authority to check the validity of Social Security numbers. State police have been conducting background checks of employees of businesses that operate at Logan since 1987, said spokesman Jose Juves.

“We did the maximum check permissible under the law with information made available to Massport,” he said.

Since Sept. 11, Massport has been working more closely with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to identify applications with false information before the security passes are issued.

Each of the workers charged Wednesday was being brought into U.S. District Court for an initial appearance and was being held pending detention hearings next week.

The charges against the six Argenbright employees come as federal aviation officials, who assumed control of security at all airports earlier this month, are moving to put the company out of the airport security business. Argenbright staffed security checkpoints at Newark and Washington Dulles airports, where two of the planes were hijacked Sept. 11, and there have been other security problems.

The national sweep, dubbed “Operation Safe Travel,” started after a Social Security and Immigration and Naturalization Service audit found a high number of airport laborers were using invalid numbers and identification.

In December, 271 workers at Salt Lake City International Airport were fired after “Operation Safe Travel” revealed they had lied to get their jobs and badges. A similar sweep also was done at the Las Vegas airport. Arrests of smaller groups or of individuals have happened at other airports.